Dr. Beryl Carter Rice is a SW community builder who lives in a Tiber Island townhouse. She is an active artist, specializing in watercolors. She displayed her work with the Tiber Island art group. She was an active member of Councilmember Tommy Wells’ Anti-Crime Task Force, which sponsored “Groups then Hoops” for 60 young men ages 16-24. In 2006, she helped get CERT (Community Emergency Response Training) for a group of SW residents from eight housing complexes. As president of the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly in 1996, Dr. Rice chaired a community forum to save the abandoned Syphax Elementary School building and convert it to low and moderate housing, where over 100 Southwest residents now live. Dr. Rice holds a Masters of Science degree from Columbia University School of Social Work and a Doctorate from Catholic University of America School of Social Service.
Roger Wilkins, a SW history maker, lives at Harbour Square. In 1963, Wilkins moved to the “New Southwest,” primarily because the school here (Amidon) had a national reputation for quality. Now, living at Harbour Square, he has observed that “the Safeway where we all shop may be the most racially and economically integrated supermarkets in America,” because both high ranking government officials and public housing residents using food stamps shop there. Wilkins was an Assistant Attorney General in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Later, along with Carl Bernstein, Herbert Block (“Herblock”), and Bob Woodward, Wilkins earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for exposing the Watergate scandal. Wilkins was the Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia until his retirement in 2007.
Southwest community builder C.W. Hargrave lives in a Capital Park townhouse. At the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Hargrave was a section head in the technical information branch. His published research is recognized on the world wide web. He won the “Spaceship Earth Award” from NASA. The award recognized Hargrave as a member and treasurer of SW/SE ANC, former president of the SW Neighborhood Assembly, and delegate to the DC Federation of Civic Associations. His work is helping to make Spaceship Earth a better place for everyone. He won again in 1988. At Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC, Hargrave was elected to the Beta Kappa Chi National Honor Society, requiring excellence in scientific studies. Mr. Hargrave has held several positions with the Presbyterian Church, including Presbytery and Synod positions, and elder and financial secretary at Westminster on I St. SW.
Annie King Phillips is a SW community builder who lived in a Carrollsburg townhouse. She is a native Washingtonian who graduated from Dunbar High School. In the 1980s Ms. Phillips was one of the founders and the first chair of the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly’s Youth Activities Task Force, giving job training and finding summer employment for dozens of SW youths, before the mayor’s Summer Job Program was started. Her community service has included being a member of SWNA’s board, MUSCLE, and Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. A former DC public school teacher and counselor, Ms. Phillips worked with Arena Stage in starting the Voices of Now training for Jefferson Junior High School students. As an artist creating colorful paper collages, Ms. Phillips has displayed her work at Art-O-Matic, run workshops, and created art in honor of Justice Thurgood Marshall, which has been installed in a historic Fire Department Call Box near where Justice Douglas lived on G St. SW. Ms. Phillips now lives with her children in Illinois.
By: Dale MacIver